soc.history.war.world-war-ii

I've edited out all points of agreement to keep this within more or
less readable proportions.

> The question is - how? A different style of rejection shouldn't mask
> the fact that Alexander could and did deny Monty when he considered it
> necessary.

As far as I can tell, Alexander "did deny Monty" exactly once, by
deciding that the main push to finish Tunisia off would be from 1st
Army. No particular row was involved as Montgomery knew he had failed
to break through on his front and would have required additional
resources to keep it up, resources which were not forthcoming.

In other words, Montgomery didn't strongly feel about the issue.
Beyond a general idea that 8th Army was the most capable force and
himself the ablest Allied general, he was too good a soldier not to
recognize that the situation dictated a northern effort.

That Montgomery backed down on that issue can as easily be interpreted
as evidence of his not being interested in arguing the point as of
Alexander's steely resolve.

I do agree that Eisenhower in North Africa wasn't doing nearly as
well. In all fairness, this was the first time that he was involved in
operational command, particularly at that level, whereas Alexander was
far more experienced at the time. Eisenhower improved later on, but to
me that's not evidence that Alexander - who didn't improve as he
already was experienced - was all that good for that level of command.

The problem which you rightly outline is that it's difficult to
compare people as if they were constant quantities.

> >Fredendall and Lucas were such obvious scapegoats that they were going
> >to be fired anyway.
>
> But not before Alexander got involved, exercising his unique ability
> to play a direct role in sacking US commanders by getting his US
> contemporaries to do the dirty work for him while retaining plausible
> deniability. We can add Ward to that list; which makes three Corps
> commanders and one divisional commander.

Again, I'm not all that impressed with the Fredendall affair, though
I'll readily admit that I would have to refresh my memory about the
specifics. My understanding is that Fredendall was so obviously
incompetent (contrary to, say, Lucas) that everyone around him noticed
and wanted him gone. Eisenhower wasn't involving himself too closely
in command matters at the time, busying himself with political and
administrative issues. He was also reluctant to sack his main
subordinate, for obvious reasons: he had no experience in determining
good and bad commanders, let alone in sacking them. Had he had several
such subordinates, it would probably have been easier.

All of this to say that maybe Alexander's recommendation was the last
straw (I'll take your word for it) but it hardly seems evidence for
your ruthless assassin theory. If Alexander was so keen on getting
corps commanders fired, what's his score with British/Commonwealth
ones?

> Nicholson, Alexander's biographer, includes text of an interview with
> Clark in 1970 which makes it clear that Alexander took the initiative
> with Clark over relieving Dawley; D'Este refers to US official history
> oral interviews with Alexander as demonstrating Alexander's desire to
> relieve Dawley even earlier.

Ok, I'll concede that one: so Alexander got Dawley fired. Is there
evidence that he forced Clark's hand and, assuming there isn't, how
does that demonstrate grip?

Patton seems to have had plenty of grip with his subordinates but he
doesn't seem to have sacked them all that much (he much preferred
shouting at them). Bradley was someone who kept firing his generals
but he wasn't that good as a commander.

> In keeping with my 'velvet-gloved
> assassin' theory, I'm stating that Alexander's low opinion of many of
> his American colleagues was masked by the diplomatic skill to ensure
> that any sackings of American subordinates were performed by his US
> contemporaries, allowing him plausible deniability.

So basically you're crediting Alexander with the skill set required of
a good courtier. That would have made him a very successful Byzantine
eunuch (along, again, with Gamelin) but how does that really help his
record as a commander?

> The concept of Anzio was flawed, but only with the
> inevitable-with-hindsight appreciation that the Allies weren't going
> to break through in the south in January.

My memory of what, among others, Bidwell & Graham's "Tug of War" and
d'Este's "Fateful Decision" say of Anzio is that most of the
commanders involved weren't all that enthusiastic about the prospects
of the whole operation. Specifically, it seems that the lack of
sufficient force was well understood beforehand.

I don't know if Alexander should be blamed for letting it happen or
not. Pros include trusting his subordinates to know what they were
doing, Cons include not checking about the prospects of the operation
and toadying to Churchill. Overal, I'd tend to exonerate him from
blame on that score. On the other hand, sacking Lucas isn't really a
case of grip because this was the third major operation that Clark was
bungling and each time Alexander was the one having to suggest that
subordinate X be fired. So either Alexander was consistently unable to
see the flaws in Clark's plans, or he was unable to identify Clark as
the problem. Either way that's not a particularly good mark.

> The point about
> sackings is that they do demonstrate the ability to implement a
> commander's will

Ok, exactly what will was being implemented here? What did Alexander
will and how did sacking Lucas bring him closer to what he wanted?

> This may not indicate brilliant generalship, but I will assert
> that this indicates Alexander's ability to assert his will as an Army
> Group commander in a way that Montgomery never managed, and belies his
> laizzez-faire reputation.

Laissez-faire... laizzez-faire is the accent one tends to get after
spending too much time sampling Alexander's prizes.

See above on the asserting his will thing. I would agree if Lucas and
Alexander had clashed over something in which case firing Lucas would
be a way for Alexander to assert his preferred policy. But I'm not
aware that this is what happened.

Nor am I convinced that Montgomery never managed something like that.
Offhand, the only instance I can remember of a subordinate defying
Monty's orders would be his "corps de chasse" at El Alamein.

> >I'm less persuaded by the loose rein implication. After all, the
> >Alexander - Montgomery team wasn't significantly different from the
> >Auchinleck - Ritchie one in terms of organization: one was in charge
> >of running the actual battle, and the other was supposed to run the
> >back-office business.
>
> Yet Ritchie was Auchinleck's creature; there was little doubt that
> there would be no clash of wills or ego between the two (although in
> part that was down to both Auchinleck being a competent C-in-C and
> Ritchie a competent subordinate; I will maintain that Ritchie's
> failures were largely down to his inability to manage his subordinates
> at Gazala).

I don't have a problem with the notion that Ritchie was a competent
corps commander, and also agree that Gazala wasn't just a case of his
being out of his depth (which he was) but also of the British Army
being insufficiently (and inadequately) trained as well as of the
opposition being pretty good.

That being said, Auchinleck was expected to replace his army commander
(Cunningham, then Ritchie) if things were bad. I'm not aware that
Alexander had an explicit mandate to the contrary i.e. a loose-rein
approach to managing Montgomery. That would have implied impressive
farsight on the part of London: after several generals had been
offered as winners only to end up as disappointments or failures,
Montgomery was known to be the right item?

You implied that the Alexander/Montgomery team was appointed with the
specific understanding that the former would let the latter do his
job. As far as I'm concerned, there is no difference between that team
and the previous ones. That Alexander didn't have to remove Montgomery
and step in as army commander was due to 8th Army finally beginning to
win battles, not to a specific mandate to Alexander not to involve
himself. In contemporary accounts, he was given much of the credit for
defeating Rommel whereas history books only record that as Monty's
doing.

> The issue with Monty was always going to be how to manage
> his egomania constructively. The miracle is that Eisenhower managed
> so well with him, even with De Guingand as a buffer, which reflects
> well upon Eisenhower (I think we can safely deny Monty any credit in
> this context), but even better on Alexander who managed him even more
> successfully.

Frankly, I still don't understand how Alexander can be said to have
managed Montgomery more (or less) successfully than anyone else. As
far as I know, he practically never managed him at all.

> Indeed; but Monty was significantly better than Ritchie as an army
> commander, and more importantly, his subordinate commanders had
> appreciated the dangers of doing their own thing against Rommel.

So Patton - whose subordinates lacked the personal experience of being
thrashed by the Germans - was a better commander than Montgomery
because he achieved the same results without the same advantages? It
looks like it's off the wine for you, and a straight diet of boiled
beef with mint sauce and over-infused tea for the next few weeks to
restore your mindset.

> >I'm not sure I follow here.
> >Alexander didn't draw the line with Montgomery because his
> >(Alexander's) other subordinates were far better-behaved and therefore
> >the overal noise level remained within acceptable limits for
> >Alexander, is that your argument?
>
> Something like that

If so, then I'm unsnipping the question that was following: how is
that evidence of Alexander exercizing grip as opposed to his lucking
out on having but the one unruly subordinate. Doubly lucking out in
fact as his unruly subordinate also happened to be successful.

> Meanwhile, why should
> Alexander be critiqued for rewarding the initiative of one of the few
> commanders to display any? (yes, I'm asking for it here...)

This can be copied verbatim and used as a very bold defense of
Alexander's (in)action when Clark decided to head for Rome after
breaking out of Anzio.

So bold indeed that I don't remember ever reading it before. If I wore
a hat it would be off for you, sir!

> Not even if I press some of this delightful Italian white on you?

What made Alexander such a cultured person is precisely that, while
British, he could appreciate Italian reds as opposed to just the
sugary stuff and white wines that British & American types go for
initially. None of this Chardonnay and Chablis stuff, which is good
enough in the right circumstances but not nearly as good with Italian
cooking.

> How did his treatment of Bradley and Simpson actually
> compare with how Alexander would have treated them?

A fair point.

What it comes down to is that if I go back to my list of multi-
national army & army group commanders, only a few had unruly foreign
subordinates. So MacArthur, Rommel and Montgomery drop out of the
picture because their foreign subordinates didn't raise a fuss. This
leaves Devers (de Lattre), Eisenhower (Montgomery) and Alexander
(Clark). The first two generally managed their unruly subordinate, the
latter didn't.

Obviously, a sample of three is insufficient to draw statistical
evidence from so one can always argue - as you do - that Clark really
was a one of a kind proposition.

> It looks like a
> case of uncharacteristic Monty tactfulness in the first instance,

How tactful did he need to be? Did Bradley disobey or ignore some of
his orders or instructions? If Montgomery is described as exhibiting
restraint for not firing Bradley while the later wasn't performing up
to expectations, then one would have to question why he didn't also
fire Dempsey (who was doing no better than Bradley in following the
scrip) or why Alexander didn't fire the commanders of 8th Army in
Italy.

> >If this was something to do with institutional culture, then surely
> >Dempsey could have ignored those of Montgomery's orders that he didn't
> >like?
>
> If you're referring to Monty's written restrictions on Goodwood
> written on 15 July 1944, they didn't actually rule out the
> exploitation that Dempsey hoped to achieve after managing a
> breakthrough.

IIRC it gave a more limited objective to one of Dempsey's divisions so
in effect yes, it pretty much ruled it out. Contrast that with the
ambitious objectives laid out for D-Day.

> Donning the stars of an armchair general for a moment, I'd agree that
> the US 45th Division should have been committed to the
> north/north-west anyway. But the real problem - according to D'Este
> at least - was Patton's inability or unwillingness to challenge
> Alexander's orders, and letting Monty's initiative go by default.

So Alexander isn't guilty of lack of grip, he is guilty of lacking the
tactical acumen to realize that Montgomery's was a bad idea?

Ok, I can go with that.

Are you sure this makes Alexander a better commander, though?

(big snip, mostly of agreed points as well as of some addressed above)

> And the respective position of the allies involved (Australians in
> SWPA vs British/Americans in the MTO) made the relationships much
> closer to one of equality in Alexander's case. The scale is an issue,
> as I suspect Ironside and Gort would have been much bigger pains in
> Gamelin's backside (and visa-versa) if the BEF had been less
> microscopic in relation to the size of the French army in 1939-40.

The BEF was kept on a fairly loose rein anyway because the French,
while a majority, were keenly sensitive to the multi-national angle as
well as viewing the British as generally equal partners. This is more
or less like the situation in Italy where actual US troops were a
minority yet 5th and 8th armies were given equal status.

Another reason for the lack of Anglo-French friction until May 19,
1940 is that Ironside, Gort and everyone else on the British side
substantially agreed with the French. This has mostly been occulted in
post-Dunkirk memoirs but looking at contemporary British planning
documents shows very little difference between these and the French,
and these are mostly matters of style. Certainly the British agreed
with French strategy and their doctrine was almost similar.
Disagreements therefore mostly were about administrative issues like
the BEF requiring more roads, more space to set up dumps and training
fields and (correctly) arguing that the accomodations provided by the
French were insufficient, while the French just as correctly objected
that the British were building a rear area out of proportion to the
size of the BEF, even including the planned arrivals for the next few
months.

This was definitely not a relationship along the same lines as the
Rommel-Italian one even though combat power was unequally distributed
in both cases.

> I'm more sceptical; I really don't think Patton did outstandingly well
> at any level.

This is something that you need to take up with David. I haven't read
d'Este's bio of the man, nor am I likely to in the near future.

> >Rommel very much acted theatrically, to the point where his rendition
> >of the Arras counterattack materially influenced OKH strategy.
>
> That was his hysterical reporting after the fact; Patton was much more
> pro-active when it came to strutting about the forward edge of the
> battle area to validate his own personal issues.

You mean like when Rommel stepped to the front and hijacked part of
5th panzer division in support of his own 7th panzer to make the Meuse
crossing? Without his playing exalted sergeant, the German crossing
would probably have been delayed.

Rommel was also very much at the forward edge of the battle area
during the dash to the wire, so much so in fact that he almost got
himself captured in the process.

There is abundant evidence of Rommel leading from the front, and I'm
not sure if Patton even compares in that regard (nor that he would
need to in order to be ranked a good general).

> That was impetuous and vainglorious, sure enough. But at least Rommel
> had the good taste to avoid doing it with a pearl-handled Luger on his
> belt, and it wasn't _wildly_ impetuous considering the state of the
> British forces at the time.

Well, you could argue that Patton was impetuous at times when German
forces really were in a parlous state.

Note that Rommel's dash against Montgomery's position near the Mareth
Line was similarly impetuous though rather more ill-considered.

And Patton was alledged to carry a pair of ivory handled Colt .45's,
not a pearl handled Luger! Talk about poor taste...

Here's a link to Patton's sidearms, the truth, the rumor, whatever for
those interested
http://www.pattonhq.com/unknown/chap05.html


LC